Announcements

16 May 2014: Every few years STScI organises a comprehensive calibration workshop. This year the calibration workshop will be held on August 11-–13, at STScI. If you are interested in learning about all the tools available to best extract the science from your Hubble data, or you want to learn about what the James Webb Space Telescope will bring to your field of research, please consider attending. The registration to the workshop is open until July 7. For additional details, see: http://www.stsci.edu/institute/conference/cal14/

24 January 2014: The European version of the Hubble Space Telescope archive, now served from ESA's Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), has its roots back in the early 1980s. At the time, it was felt that European users of Hubble might be handicapped by the need to communicate with, or even physically travel to, STScI, the scientific operations centre of Hubble in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. And so in 1984, ESA and ESO cooperated to operate a Hubble information, utilities and data centre — the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST–ECF), based at the European Southern Observatory's Headquarters near Munich. Prominent among its charges was to "provide an efficient means of archiving and cataloguing Space Telescope (ST) data and for retrieving and disseminating non-proprietary ST data". The advent of the web — the ST–ECF's website was registered as number 162 (!) or so — has done away with much of the need for a separate …

24 January 2014: We are less than two months away from the start of the Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV conference, to be held at the prestigious Accademia dei Lincei in Rome on 17–20 March 2014. This conference is designed to highlight the scientific breakthroughs made by the Hubble Space Telescope in its two decades of life. We have three specific goals for this meeting: To share the latest results from Hubble across the broad canvas of astronomy. To inspire the community of Hubble users to think about how Hubble’s successor — the James Webb Space Telescope — will move their scientific field forward. To look further into the future, posing the scientific questions that will shape the field of astrophysics in the next decade. This conference comes five years after Servicing Mission 4 — the last manned mission to Hubble. We will kick off the 25th anniversary of Hubble’s launch …

24 January 2014: As announced earlier, the Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV conference in March 2014 aims to share the latest results from Hubble across the broad canvas of astronomy, also looking at what will shape the field of astrophysics in the next decade. Alongside this scientific content, there will be an innovative art installation using sound and light entitled Heaven's Carousel. The Heaven's Carousel will link together music and astronomy in a pioneering way. Conceptualised and designed by German artist and composer Tim Otto Roth, the Carousel will illustrate the accelerating, expanding Universe — a discovery in which Hubble played a significant role — through the medium of light and sound. Taking inspiration from the work of Nobel laureate Adam Riess (STScI) on the expanding Universe, Greek cosmology, and Renaissance astronomers such as Kepler and Galileo, Roth aims to explore how the mechanics of the Universe might sound in the …

17 October 2013: We have now formally announced the conference "Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV", to be held at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome from 17–20 March 2014. This conference, subtitled "Looking to the Future", aims to celebrate and highlight the scientific breakthroughs that Hubble has made over the last two decades by sharing new results, inspiring the Hubble user community to think about Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, and looking even further into the future by considering some of the key scientific questions that will shape the field of astrophysics in the coming decade. Information on the conference registration deadlines, abstract submission, and scientific programme can be found on the conference website. This conference aims to give ample space to new and exciting results from Hubble. If you are working on a new result, please consider announcing it in Rome. Any conference related queries should be directed …

17 October 2013: Dr Charles Mattias ("Matt") Mountain has been the Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, since September 2005. He is also the Telescope Scientist for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a member of the Webb Science Working Group, a Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., and a Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford (UK). Since its inception in the mid-1970s, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has always been a joint NASA–ESA mission. So when I was asked to write a few words for the ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter, it created a dissonance in my thinking as I tried to differentiate in my mind what I might say in a European newsletter as opposed to an HST Newsletter. As Director, from my viewpoint, the ESA community has always been very "present" in the way we run and use HST. At the Institute we have ESA scientists …

17 October 2013: On 23 October 2013, Hubble will begin deep observations of the galaxy cluster Abell 2744 (pictured above) and a "blank" field in parallel with WFC3/IR and ACS/WFC. These will be the first observations obtained by the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) Director's Discretionary Time (DDT) programme. This three-year, 840-orbit programme will yield our deepest views of the Universe to date, combining the powers of the Hubble Space Telescope and strong gravitational lensing by massive galaxy clusters. In all, six clusters and six "blank" fields will be observed, subject to an interim review approving observations of the final two pairs. STScI delivers all raw observations to the community immediately, followed by reduced science-quality images soon thereafter. Additionally, STScI provides multiple estimates of lensing magnifications with uncertainties based on models submitted by five independent teams. Three other HST General Observer programmes will observe the Frontier Fields in Cycle 21, and co-ordinated Spitzer observations …

17 October 2013: We are pleased to announce that the APIS (Auroral Planetary Imaging and Spectroscopy) service is now open to the community, and accessible at the address: http://lesia.obspm.fr/apis/ APIS was officially opened at the Magnetospheres of Outer Planets meeting in Athens, 8–12 July 2013. Details are provided on the webpage above. In brief, the service consists of a database of all HST Far-UV spectro-imaging observations of the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus) acquired by the STIS and ACS instruments from 1997 up to now (which totals ~5000 individual images and spectra). For each of these APIS provides a set of higher level data (e.g. cylindrical/polar projections). The data are available in different formats (jpg, pdf, FITS) and can be browsed and sifted through with a dedicated search interface. Interactive tools (Aladin, Specview) also enable the user to directly work on the images and spectra online.

19 July 2013: We are pleased to informally announce the fourth conference in the series “Science with the Hubble Space Telescope”, to be held at the prestigious Accademia dei Lincei in Rome from 17–20 March 2014. Antonella Nota (ESA & STScI) and Roger Davies (Oxford) will co-Chair the Scientific Organising Committee. The conference will be sponsored by ESA, in collaboration with NASA and other partner organisations, and is designed to highlight the scientific breakthroughs made by the Hubble Space Telescope during its two decades of operation, with special emphasis on European contributions. We have three specific goals for this meeting, which is subtitled “Looking to the Future”: to share the latest results from Hubble across the broad canvas of astronomy, to inspire the community of Hubble users to think how Hubble’s successor — the James Webb Space Telescope — will move their scientific field forward, and to look yet further into the future, …

16 July 2013: The Space Telescope Users Committee (STUC) meets at STScI twice a year. This committee is composed of community representatives, who serve and advise on Hubble Space Telescope operations from the users’ perspective, recommending changes and improvements to instrumentation and procedures in order to maximise the scientific performance and productivity of the observatory. Because Hubble is a NASA/ESA partnership, the European astronomical community is also represented on the STUC. There are currently three ESA representatives on this committee: David Sing (Exeter), Giampaolo Piotto (INAF Padova), and Annette Ferguson (Edinburgh), who has recently become Chair. STUC members are interested in ensuring that the broader community is aware of the continuing success of the HST mission, the high level of scientific output, and the increasing demand for telescope time, even 23 years into the mission's lifetime. Europe-based astronomers have enjoyed much success in winning telescope time over the years, and have played a crucial …

16 July 2013: In exchange for ESA’s contributions to the Hubble mission, users from ESA member countries have guaranteed access to 15% of Hubble’s observing time over the lifetime of the mission. The time is allocated via a peer review system where a Telescope Allocation Committee (TAC) evaluates the scientific merits of the proposals received for each cycle, and makes their recommendations to the STScI Director.The TAC met at STScI during the week of 13–18 May 2013. 137 astronomers from all over the world, 25 of whom were from ESA member states, met to evaluate and rank the 1094 proposals received this cycle, Cycle 21 (the highest number since Servicing Mission 4). Proposal pressure was extremely high, with an oversubscription of approximately 6:1.ESA member state scientists were successful as PIs on 22.9% of the accepted proposals and obtained 17.7% of the primary orbits allocated. The total number of ESA member state investigators involved …

16 July 2013: As a European Hubble user, you can access ESA/Hubble’s resources to promote your work to the media and the general public. ESA/Hubble can help by producing and distributing press releases, image processing, web articles, artists’ impressions, and high-definition video. We can also feature your work on the Hubblecast, the world’s most popular science video podcast. ESA/Hubble science writers and image processing experts work closely with scientists while preparing releases, ensuring scientific accuracy. You can see examples of ESA/Hubble press products at www.spacetelescope.org. As well as being a key part of the Hubble mission, education and public outreach work can also have benefits for you, your field of research and your institution. If you think any part of your research could be of interest to the public at large, or your observations might produce an image suitable for public release, please contact Georgia Bladon (email: [email protected]) so we can explore possible …